The images below are from the traveling exhibition entitled "does time stand still?" Each print is an original hand-made work of art created in a limited edition. The works have been shown in a variety of museums and galleries in the North Eastern United States.

The neutron images included in the show are the first in a larger series of radigraphs that were created with a nuclear reactor.

Most of the works are 16 x 20 inches and come with a pH neutral unbufferd museum mat measuring 20 x 24 inches. You may wish to remat the images in unbuffered museum board if you would like to see the brush strokes from the hand-applied emulsion.

EXHIBITION CATALOGS

There are 37 images in the show catalog that are a part of does time stand still?. The catalog is 6 x 8 inches, 36pp, softbound for $25 + $3s/h. If you would like a copy of the 6 x 8 exhibition catalog shown above please click the add-to-cart button below.

The mini book (pictured above) is also available for $13 + $2s/h.

Big Leaf Magnolia 116 x 20 inch cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle

EXHIBITIONS: Brooklyn Botanic GardenDiscovery Museum

$$1,500 eachEdition of 25

Big Leaf Magnolia 316 x 20 inch cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle

EXHIBITIONS: Brooklyn Botanic GardenDiscovery Museum

$$1,500 eachEdition of 25

CYANOTYPE PROCESS

The cyanotype process has remained virtually unchanged since its invention. Two compounds (iron salts): potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate are mixed with water. Paper, card, textiles or any other natural material is then coated with the mixture and dried in the dark. When the material is dry, a negative can be placed onto the paper and exposed to light. When exposed, the mixture becomes blue where light hits it, and the unexposed chemistry washes away. Some of the first cyanotypes didn't use a negative. Instead people placed leaves and other objects directly onto sensitized paper and exposed it to capture the shape.

The color of a cyanotype (called Prussian Blue or cyan) was first made accidentally in 1704, from ox blood and other animal bits, but it wasn't until 1842 that the English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel discovered the exposure procedure. Though Sir John Herschel is perhaps the inventor of the cyanotype process; it was Anna Atkins, a British scientist, who brought the process into the realm of photography. She created a limited series of cyanotype books that document ferns and other plant life. By using this process, Anna Atkins is regarded as the first woman photographer.

The cyanotype is named for its rich blue-green hue, cyan (a color that was originally produced using cyanide). At the turn-of-the-century, cyanotypes were popular because they are simpler and less expensive to produce than the silver printing process – and they created a more painterly product that was admired by the Pictoralists of the time. The architectural blueprint is a variation of this photographic process that was very popular until the advent of the photocopier.

Because the process was relatively easy to do using sunlight instead of a darkroom, it was the process of choice during the Spanish-American War. Many professional photographers disliked the monochromatic blue color – agreeing with Peter Henry Emerson's dictate in Naturalistic Photography: "...no one but a vandal would print a landscape in red, or in Cyanotype" and did not do serious work using the process. In response, some photographers developed methods of toning the photographs with tea and other compounds to expand the color options.

Interesting Fact: because of the ability of the chemicals in a cyanotype to act as host for relatively large amounts of impurity, it has recently been put to good use by locking up the radioactivity that was deposited on the uplands of North Wales and Cumbria following the Chernobyl disaster. Spreading the chemical on the contaminated soil inhibited the uptake of Caesium 137 by grass – and sheep were safeguarded from radioactive contamination.